Activism is about a minority point of view seeking to become a majority point of view. In some cases this is reasonable and successful.

The idea that every minority point of view has equal validity is ill-founded. In some cases they lapse into violence or terrorism although that is a very small number of cases

When minorities seek to impose their point of view it is divisive. it is understandable there are security concerns, so the question is to what degree which is not addressed. To say there is increasing repressive action in response to increasing internet based digitally enabled activism simply measures the increase in activity not whether there is an increase in repression.

The opportunity for nternet based activism has undoubtedly lead to increasingly small minorities seeking influence and the question there has to be - to what extend should a population group comprising 0.1 to 0.3% of the population be demanding compliance from the other 99.7 to 99.9% of the population. Those stats are real for one of the groups embedded in the article argument. Another group I can think of which is in the order of 0.2 to 0.3% of the population is causing significant and measured disquiet in 50% to 70% of the main population group. I will not identify the categories because the issue is not whether the rights claimed are valid, that is a different discussion, the point is the size of the minority seeking resolution. You can get a lot of very vocal 0.3% minority groups out of 10% or 20% of the whole population which is still a minority.

That is without the problem of externally funding designed to enable impact or in some cases social division

'But the reality is that security risks – which may well be genuine – are no excuse for the kind of blanket suspicion that governments are using as a pretext for silencing or prohibiting independent organizations.' BU

How do you suggest security risks are dealt with then. The Black Hand Gang had a few hundred members, had the manifesto of 'unification or death' and initiated WWI. Extreme I know but it still happened Read more

"governments cite all sorts of reasons, security concerns such as those relating to terrorism now being at the top of the list, to justify the repression of NGOs and other civil society groups. But the reality is that security risks – which may well be genuine – are no excuse for the kind of blanket suspicion that governments are using as a pretext for silencing or prohibiting independent organizations."Nonsense. Western NGOs have been causing mayhem in foreign countries for decades. Soros' Better China NGO sponsored the Tiananmen demonstrations and funded the terrorism incident nearby in which dozens died.Western NGOs are and have been sponsors of terrorism. They need to be tightly supervised and regulated in every country that aspires to independence which, apparently, Germany does not. Read more

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